Enjoy yourself as much as you like, if only you keep from sin.
St. John Bosco

Monday, November 5, 2007

Monday 11/5 Happy Anniversary to us!

Woke early, managed to work on novel for 25 minutes or so. Only up to a piddly 3 thousand words.

S and J took showers. B was bathed yesterday.

Said two decades of rosary. B was naughty and sent to room.

Had quick breakfast. J did rest of math homework as did W.

H showered and went to Spanish class. Didn't make it to mass. She's having trouble sleeping.

After breakfast read the story of Esau and Jacob to S and B from Golden Bible. Showed J his assignments for the day.

Sang two new songs for Nov. Now Thank We All Our God and Over the River and Through the Wood. Greenworks showed up to repair stone walls in garden. I explained a bit of the story behind Now Thank We All Our God. S was really interested. He wanted to know what the plague was. He recalled it being mentioned in a story on his Knights cd.

Did mental math with B. She had to name what two numbers added up to 5, 7 and 8. We wound up doing this on the whiteboard. For S's mental math we rounded to nearest ten and then added together two numbers. S was getting very into the physics of pool balls. He noticed that if he knocked one ball with a line of balls only one ball rolled out the other end. So we experimented. It worked up until 5 balls then the number of balls rolling out didn't correspond with the number of knocking balls. I'll have to show him an example of a Newton's Cradle on the internet. He wanted to know how fast the force went through the balls. Good science question. He asked W who said he was learning the formula for kinetic energy right now in Chemistry. So he'd find out and let S know. S is very proud of his scientific questions!

S did LLATL. We reviewed compound words. I had him work on printing neatly because he's been saying he wants to learn to write better. I'd been giving him a break since he's been struggling so with it. He filled in the blanks and tried to figure out how to spell words on his own. He did pretty well with sounding them out. We review lots of phonics rules during this. He also practiced a page of cursive.

S also played music all day either on piano, keyboard or recorder.

B practiced writing her Gg's. Then she had fun tracing stencils on a big paper and making a picture for me. She read a Primary Phonics reader and then did a workbook page. She was into it!

Kids were very cooperative this morning in spite of the fact that we haven't been in our regular routine for several days due to Halloween, All Saints and All Souls.

Math tutor got here around 10 30 and has been working with J and W. She looks so tired. She says she has a migraine. Poor woman!

J read 3 chapters of Mystery of the Periodic Table this a.m.

Read Kat Finds a Friend out loud during lunch (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton) Said another decade of rosary.

H called to say she is going to B&N to get a SAT study book and a SAT II chem book.

W has been playing guitar. Now he's going jogging. J is reading Faith & Life, 1st chap. which were are going to discuss afterwards. S is up in his room, don't know what he's doing. B is listening to the last cd in Charlie and the Glass Elevator in her room.

R just sent me flowers! It's our anniversary! I keep forgetting!

W went to play a computer game but now it's 4:10 and he said he'd start back up to work by now. I don't know what H is doing. She did come home though. I asked her if she could type up some templates for J and me so we can practice writing out the Latin forms we need to memorize. J did the geography portion of his FMMA test review and then translated 3 sentences and went over new vocab and dictum and forms from lesson.

B came down from quiet time and asked me to do a mad lib with her. Good review of nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

I took a long shower and remembered to take my iron!

Now J is complaining of a headache and not feeling well. Uh oh! B had a headache and then developed a fever over the weekend. Wonder if J is coming down with it. He went off to play with his gameboy.

Sean just brought in the mail for me. Now he's watching Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

W is wandering around. I sent him out to work on his history paper but he came back in and announced he'd work on chemistry instead.

I'm going to find out what H, B and J are up to. I might put H on laundry duty.

5:26 I found H. She was studying Chemistry. W did some research on Pius V. I still don't know where J is. I read some Health, Safety and Manners to B at her request and then read her the next OM fairy tale for the letter H, Mother Holle. S has been playing on the computer but came in to listen to Mother Holle. I did get a load of laundry on and now am going to tidy the kitchen.

H made dinner, ham, egg and cheese sandwiches. R took me out to Bonarotti's and we had a wonderful meal. I ate lots of spinach and red meat. Gotta get that iron. H took B with her to mass at 7:30 and B was very good!

R and I got home, W was playing guitar again. H up in her room, 3 young ones laughing away at America's funniest home videos. What a silly show.

Got kids to bed late. R read them more Wayside. Got Christopher West's new book on Love in mail earlier today and gave it to R for present. Read him introduction but he fell asleep!

10th Grade - Catholic Life Community, A Beka Biology, Saxon Algebra II and Jacobs Geometry, New First Steps in Latin/Lingua Latina, The History of the Church, St. Augustine's Confessions, Augustine Came to Kent, William the Conqueror by Belloc, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, St. Francis of Assisi by Chesterton, The Quiet Light by de Wohl, Dante's Inferno, Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, Lepanto by Chesterton, Hamlet by Shakespeare

A Brief Introduction

My husband, Rick and I have been married for almost 22 years. We are Catholic (well, Rick is Jewish!) and love living the homeschooling lifestyle. The kids have all been diagnosed with LDs when it comes to reading and writing. These turned out to simply mean we bloom a little later than other kids do in these subjects. No big deal. But I am a big fan of vision therapy as it has helped my kids so much!

We've been pretty relaxed these past few years, most relaxed in the youngest years and gradually getting more formal as we enter high school and design our own college prep plans. This year we are starting out more formal for 6th grade. My son has expressed a desire to go to school next year in 7th grade. So to help prepare him for that he wanted to to enroll in Kolbe's homeschool program to get used to taking tests, writing more and keeping a tighter schedule. The 4th grader is following suit, just because they are used to doing much the same thing each day.

My 15 yo wants to go to college and is interested in the fields of economics, business and finance, computers and game design.

I have graduated two children from homeschool already! My oldest daughter, 19, is starting her second year at the University of Dallas, majoring in Politics. My oldest son, 18, plans to study and take CLEP tests using CollegePlus, find a parttime job, and practice and prepare for his winter audition for a music conservatory. He aspires to be a composer and performer.

So we are down to homeschooling three kids this year, 2010-2011 - a 10th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd/4th grader. This will be our 14th year of homeschooling!